Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1887-02-18
THE WORLDS SUGAR.
BENEFITS OF nOUNTIES ABROAD
A GREAT INDUSTRY OF
EUROPE.

WASHINGTON, January 2S.-The
Agricultural Department issued to.
day an important report on the SUI
oar production of the world. 1t is
of special interest at the present
time. because Of the talk of abol-
ishing sugar duties so freely IN
dnlged in by some of our leading
legislators.
This report shows that the pro-
duction of cane sugar has been car
rled on in the West Indies, Brazil,
East Indies and other countries,
largely by slave labor, with clumsy
machinery and wasteiul processes.
1t has not been the result of very
advanced mechanism or science,
though there has been progress and
Improvement. It is claimed ;hat
little more than half the sugar is
extracted in the Louisiana manu-
facture. There Is room for vast i'm
provement, even in this country,
that should cheaper the cost of the
product and give adequate profit to
the business.
People may sheer at bountles,
but what have they done for Euro
pean countries? Let the Commits
sioner of Agriculture, who is him
self Free-trader, answer the ques-
ton. ! quote his words:
BENEFIT or BOUNrIES ABROAD.
"Of the commercially reported
SUGAR of the world half is now made
in Europe, where at the beginning
of the century, its experimental cost
was, perhaps, not less than dollar
per pound and scarcely known eX-
cent in the laboratories Ofchemists.
BY indOmitable perseverance, with
/ the aid of bounties 10y the Govern
ments, the sugar of beets has near
" driven to the wall the cane pro
duct grown by low-priced and com
paratively unprOdUctive labor, re-
ducing to an unprecedented figure
the price and revoluhonizing COM
merce in sugar"
There is no reason why we should
not establish a vast beet-rOot sugar
| industry IN the United States. If
Belgium and Holland can raise
nearly 100000 tons Of beet sugar
annually and France and Germany
nearly 500, 600, the United States
can produce all the sugar it re-
0uires. Our consumption of sugar,
as this report shows, is enormous,
rapidly increasing, amounting to
about One.fourth Of all the sugars
reported from the countries of prln-
cipal production, according to NJ.
LIGHT, the European authority on
| this subject. Our consumption in
| 1856 is reported at 1,2l5,574 tons,
mostly cane sugar, but 96,l2j tons
of it beet sugar from Europe.
AMERICAS ERROR.
1t is, indeed, a serious reflection
on American enterprise that this
industry should remain in a Ian
gushing condition, unable to com
pete with foreign effort in this line,
at the very moment that Europe is
loud in cutlery against the disas-
trOus effects of American COMPETE
ton in the products Of agriculture.
Within twenty-five years more than
1000 900 tons will be required, al
most sufficient to swallow up the
present production of beet sugar,
or the whole of the present cane
sugar of commerce, At a time
when labor is in excess of demand,
and corn ana cotton and wheat and
other old staples of a primitive
agriculture exceed the wants of
domestic and foreign markets, we
scour the world for food products,
costing more than 100000, 600 per
annum, the larger portion OF which
should be produced in the United
States. This primitive and unen.
terprising situation must be sur
mounted by a more skillful, scien
tifc and inventive agriculture.
THE WORLD'SSUGAR PRODUCTION.
OF the total production of cane
sugar throughout the world, which
in 1856 amounted to ., 1868, 900 tons,
as against 2,53O,OOO tons Of beet
sugar, Cuba produced 5000 tons I;
Java, 10000 tons; East Indies,
100000 tons; Brazil, 10000 tons,
and Louisiana only 10000 tons.
Beet root sugar is produced in the